Rotluchs:Why is it hard to believe that American soldiers would absolutely care about the safety of a child? They are all sons, fathers, brothers, daughters, sisters and mothers over there. I have no doubt they did not want to hurt that child and would have not engaged if the child remained. They had the coordinates. Just knowing the IED was there meant it was benign. Killing the insurgents would have been a bonus. Saving the kid is human. The IED took care of the insurgents. The kid got away. Win-Win-Win

Those turrists planting the IED were kids at one time and look how they turned out. That kid was already halfway though Jihad training by the looks of it and was no doubt well on his way to being a full blown haji. I hope that one of those clowns was this kids father, maybe he'll choose a different path.

omeganuepsilon:Kahabut: Why does the video after detonation have debris on the camera? Think about it for a second.

Because the artifacts were there the whole video.

As someone who worked on such equipment it was the first thing I noticed. I imagine requirements as such are less strenuous out in the field, but if we had any nicks in the lens covers that were visible on video, it got swapped out ASAP.

On helicopters, typically it's nicks and pockmarks, take offs and landings(you and other aircraft) can stir up a lot of hard particles. The things are supposed to be stowed(a position where it will take the least amount of damage), but often enough it's just flipped off wherever it was pointed.

F-15's in the SE United States the big thing was farking bugs splattering and epoxying in place. You think the bumper on your car is bad...

It's so much more fun to make up conspiracies though. That being said, your explanation makes too much sense to dispute.

(I think the deflector for my car is made out of a glue like material soluble only in bug guts, and my car rarely reaches 100+ ground speed)

Rotluchs:Why is it hard to believe that American soldiers would absolutely care about the safety of a child? They are all sons, fathers, brothers, daughters, sisters and mothers over there. I have no doubt they did not want to hurt that child and would have not engaged if the child remained. They had the coordinates. Just knowing the IED was there meant it was benign. Killing the insurgents would have been a bonus. Saving the kid is human. The IED took care of the insurgents. The kid got away. Win-Win-Win

Because, ideally to the authoritarian segment of the population, the soldiers would be reduced to unthinking, unfeeling robot-like organisms before being put on the battlefield. Then we could perfectly win all our wars with no human casualties, because everything on our side that's doing the fighting would never question orders, are just as willing to kill themselves as to kill the enemy, and can be cleanly disposed of after the battle without any concern for human rights, since they're really not human any more.

/sadly, even the most powerful brainwashing and suggestion-implanting techniques developed by the intellectual left has been unable to do this with a 100% success rate//good thing we can finally mass-produce aerial drones

DubtodaIll:Egoy3k: Deep Contact: Must of been a very quiet helicopter.

It was probably a good distance from them. The optics on an Apache (or any attack helicopter) are pretty impressive and it's unlikely that the Taliban has any idea of their capabilities.

I would think so as well. In the consumer market you can get thermal cameras with an operational range of 8 miles. The goods in the consumer market are at least 20 years behind what is available to the military.

Yeah...about that. Anything in today's military is commercial off the shelf. If they have it, you can too, if your wallet is fat enough.

FarkinNortherner:Joe Blowme: The one authorized by congress and given the green light by the UN?

On the basis of information the intelligence community knew to be false.

The information that every intelligence agency in the world agreed on and still stand by to this day? That Democrats and Republicans alike agreed on and was unanimously approved by the UN Security Council? That intelligence?

No need to, want to see some disturbing awesome video? Guns slaved to the camera, point and shoot.

Dislaimer: No red blood, but white hot sillouete of gore. Maybe NSFW/lunch if your particularly easily unsettled or work for prudes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHw_JWLkqOo/an often seen video, insurgents trying to hide a weapon in a farm field, things go way south//I find it amazing that the guys are so nervous it is very obvious. Hint, if you're that much of a nelly, you should just maybe give up on the soldiering bit.

No need of tall tales to scare the shiat out of people. These vehicles are farking deadly.Here's some more that demonstrate differences/uses in other fighting aircraft.(others yet are just used for observation/navigation)

Some AC-130 gunship flir footage(good audio if you have a good set of sealed cans that isolate your ears from outside sources, sounds almost like how it sounds on the plane, but lacking the altitude/cabin pressure effect, turn it way down to compensate)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F18X2ARcHXk(Call of Duty games did a fair job of emulating this, and that even got made fun of in the A-Team movie if you saw that, "Wow, that looks just like Call of Duty!" said the agent who's only real fighting as such was in video games)

F-15(same things used on F-14-15-16's) In action(lots of gulf war stuff if you watched clips back in the day they'll seem familiar)This was the equipment I worked on the most.(may want audio down for this one, some clips have none, others are sparking and popping)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHCL4_v_z3o

That last one was the older pods, newer ones came into use about ten or so years ago(round about when I parted ways) with better video and tracking, IIRC There were some footage of those but I closed the tab(I thought I'd pasted the link but I don't see it here.) Lots more on youtube of similar stuff you you're interested.(I was shifted from F15 bases to C-130 base, large reason that I left the service, I got farked over when they(Some high level doo-wa who thinks all the equipment is the same) shifted jobs classifications around and had to start from scratch in learning the airframe) .It's like working on a modern computer, being excited about the new one on the way, and then getting stuffed into a different office with less intelligent people and equipment that's 20 years older./yeah I'm still bitter

WhiskeyBoy:We were rocket attacked on the Embassy compound twice a day my entire tour. I was friends with some of the EOD guys who respond to those attacks. They would show me the photos. Two by fours propped up on car jacks cranked to various angles with the rockets resting on top in the hopes that maybe one or two would come close. Maybe 3 of 12 would fire properly. Some were wired incorrectly, others the cell phones used as timers had their alarms set to the wrong time (am not pm, etc). Often times the rocket would just detonate on the ground ruining the rest of the bunch in the process. These people aren't just dumb. They are in a whole different class of stupid.

DrPainMD:And, by "insurgent," they mean people who are standing in their own yards desperately trying to defend their homes and families from a foreign army. I wish the next group much better luck.

The funny thing is most of them wouldn't even know they were occupied by a foreign army if they weren't constantly being reminded by Al-Jazeera.

/the bombs in the tenth anniversary mass bombing weren't even targeted at Americans, but at fellow Iraqis (Sunni and Shia) in schools, universities and hospitals//if you wonder why Iraqis would attack schools, universities, and hospitals, you should know that Al-Jazeera tells them anyone with education in anything but Sharia law is really an American

here to help:Yanno... it's one thing to be glad some bad guys had their cunning plan foiled but the sheer joy being expressed here is a little gross. Those are people just trying to deter an invading army like many of us would if put in the same position.

War is disgusting and not something to fap over.

Is the US the only invading force? Definitely from the Taliban's point of view. But what about the Taliban? Are they not an invading force which seized control of Kabul with the help of the ISI (and American supplied weapons and war machines)? Before the Taliban militarily seized Afghanistan, women could work in government offices, go to school, wear skirts, etc. This whole quagmire is a lot more complicated than "US: foreign invaders! Taliban: grassroots liberation movement!" Everyday Afghans have been stuck in the farking crossfire for decades.

Egoy3k:lordaction: According to the liberals that post on all these vids, these guys were just poor farmers that were tilling the ground to plant crops for their hungry children. On a side not, isn't it amazing how silent the anti-war left has been since Obama got elected. It is almost as if those guys were giving aid and comfort to the enemy purely over politics.

If you think making stupid (in this case incredibly stupid) comments on the internet is 'giving aid and comfort to the enemy' then you have a seriously distorted worldview. It's no wonder that people like to you equate socialized medicine with communism.

Where are all the anti-war protests for president drone strike, eh? It's been pretty quiet out there. Internet comments are irrelevant compared to the utter silence from folks who couldn't stop astro turfing mass demonstrations during Bush's presidency.

The difference is enough to make you think those folks aren't anti-war, they're just on the other side. Plus, have you ever tried counter protesting the 'peaceniks' ? They get pretty physical pretty fast. If they're sincere at all- which I doubt- their anti-war attitudes are compensation for explosive anger problems.

Kludge:Yep, we're burning a shiatton a fuel in $130 million state-of-the-art airplanes, for hours at a time... monitoring a few guys down the road from their house with an IED that's worth $100.

What do you think the actual, hourly support cost of all the personnel involved with that mission was?

And we've been doing this for a decade... and we're sequestering our spending here at home?

If you're a guy, you'd understand the hesitation to pull out once you've committed.

/just playing//I can't get into politics discussions as such, try not to anyhow///so many factors, to include back room deals, impossible to be informed(if you think you are, you are a politician, or you've fallen for an illusion)

smazzocity:DrPainMD: And, by "insurgent," they mean people who are standing in their own yards desperately trying to defend their homes and families from a foreign army. I wish the next group much better luck.

Yes, because no native Afghans tried fighting the Taliban themselves.

Hes one of the Muj in the photo with Reagan that alot of people want to claim are the Taliban or AQ....

Even SFOD-D visited his grave and paid their respects when in country.

randomjsa:DrPainMD: And, by "insurgent," they mean people who are standing in their own yards desperately trying to defend their homes and families from a foreign army. I wish the next group much better luck.

I'm guessing you missed the part where they were actively engaged in an act of terrorism

What would you call the fighters in the American Revolution who were opposing the British Army?

The lesson to take away from these videos is this: if you ever believe you are being targeted by gunships at night, do not try to hide in the darkness. Rather, hide in the light - find the biggest source of heat nearby and tuck yourself underneath it. then, do not move.

Hopefully knowledge that will never be needed, but you never know. Many girls I know who grew up in com bloc countries were taught defensive hiding against helicopters and planes. One of the most interesting was what to do if you were caught in the open in daylight: stand straight, hands flat to your sides, and hope that you look like a small tree. Obviously no good against IR

randomjsa:DrPainMD: And, by "insurgent," they mean people who are standing in their own yards desperately trying to defend their homes and families from a foreign army. I wish the next group much better luck.

I'm guessing you missed the part where they were actively engaged in an act of terrorism and thought nothing of having a child, probably one of their own, near an active and unstable bomb.

Only one child? Heck, we've killed millions in our wars of aggression. We spend more money and manpower on terrorism than any other country in the history of the human race... and second place is WAAAAY behind us.